Jim Barnes’ college football forecast: BYU, USC among best bets

Anyone who tells you it’s easy to win at sports betting is lying.

It’s extremely difficult. Those rare professional sports bettors you hear about devote their life to it, and often have partners or employees who share the work of breaking down games, trying to gather information about teams and monitoring the betting market.

I am not a professional sports bettor. I am a journalist who writes about sports betting, an avid amateur who has been lucky enough to turn his hobby into a job.

My best sports have been college football and basketball. I can’t promise I will have a winning season, but I expect to have one.

As the saying goes, these picks are for entertainment purposes only. Don’t bet your mortgage on these (please).

Here are my five best plays for Week 1 of college football, with the consensus line as of Thursday:

— Southern California (-14): The Trojans have high hopes, but they face a tough test against the Spartans, who went undefeated against an all-Mountain West schedule last season. San Jose State also has a game under its belt, having cruised past Southern Utah 45-14 in one of the scant Week Zero games, while USC is playing its season opener. But sometimes having played a game works against a team; now their opponent has some tape to study. Quarterback Kedon Slovis and the Trojans should pull away in the second half.

— Kentucky (-31): Louisiana-Monroe was awful in last year’s COVID-shortened season, going 0-7 with six of the losses by 18 or more points (all against non-Power Five schools). Now the Warhawks have to try to stay within shouting distance of a Southeastern Conference team. Circa Sports, the sharpest sportsbook in Las Vegas, ticked up to -31½ on Thursday when the rest of the market was at 31 or even 30½. That’s a signal to lay the points with Kentucky.

— Akron (+37): This is a bet against Auburn rather than a bet on the Zips, who went 1-5 last season. Former Boise State coach Bryan Harsin takes over at Auburn, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Tigers start slowly under new management. Or at least not come out firing enough to win by more than five touchdowns.

— Texas-San Antonio (+5½): It’s best to anchor handicapping in statistics and logical reasoning, but a more artistic betting theory I subscribe to is, “This doesn’t look right.” Illinois has excitement surrounding the program under new coach Bret Bielema, and the Illini upset Nebraska as 7-point underdogs last week. Now Illinois is laying less than a touchdown at home to a Conference USA team? This doesn’t look right. Take the Roadrunners.

— Brigham Young (-12½): The Cougars had close to a dream season in 2020, going 11-1 under quarterback Zach Wilson, who became the No. 2 overall NFL draft pick by the New York Jets. But BYU was more than Wilson, and Arizona is starting over with new coach Jedd Fisch after an 0-5 season.

Contact Jim Barnes at jbarnes@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0277. Follow @JimBarnesLV on Twitter.